BURGER: Comical Misadventures Even at his Death
by Dan Bivens
Summary: This is a true story presented as a tribute to a dear friend who died all too soon. Laughter IS allowed!
1. THE FUNERAL

**BURGER**

**A True Story of One Man's Comical Misadventures (Even at His Death!)**

"THE FUNERAL"

It was a solemn setting. Most funerary rites and rituals were.

But not nearly so for Ricky Dills, freckle-faced fifty-something, though he certainly looked at least a decade younger. Something quite possibly a source of genuine jealousy, though never voiced, for the handful of fellow friends paying their final respects to the peaceful corpse in the coffin.

Doug Burger, though he'd never taken a single lady, of which there were several, for his blushing bride and, as far as anyone knew, had never sired any offspring, had nevertheless conveyed more than a few funny remembrances for each and every surviving friend stiffly seated in some of the pews so perfectly aligned within the chilled chapel of the community funeral parlor.

But none were nurturing more in the way of actual wacky events as the freckle-faced Ricky Dills seated, not surprisingly, on the aisle-side of the pew situated closest to the open-lidded coffin, for easy access observation for the dozen or so friends who were, one and all, titillated and touched, at one time or the other, by someone seemingly hell-bent on living a laughable life fraught with ridiculous situations that, to all save this tight-knit gathering of fast-friends, could've easily been written off as self-deluding stunts.

Ricky, for one, knew better.

He'd been there through the truly "stupid", for lack of a better term, instances…especially when the two of them, shortly after high school's blessed conclusion, had driven Doug Burger's distressed, due to unbelievably ridiculous situations since its initial acquisition, GTO to Atlanta, Georgia.

Memories of events which, for Ricky, would forever bring a spreading smile or even outright belly laughter…even at something so solemn as Doug's funeral, now held only for friends as Doug's family, consisting of cousins and his wheelchair-confined ninety-something mother, had long since left their much more somber final farewell.

"And now," said the cleric who'd delivered platitudes and proverbs for the benefit of the truly grieving loved ones, but not necessary for the friends, all fifty-something in age, remaining, "Ricky Dills, perhaps the closest to the deceased, wishes to end these services by relaying some stories centered upon Doug Burger's life before the onset of the cancer that claimed him so soon before finishing his existence on Earth. Ricky…?"

All was silent and dismal, as such reverent services involving a dearly departed friend predictably became, until Ricky's freckled face shone with the amused remembrances of all he and Doug had experienced since first becoming fast friends at the age of sixteen and had continued right up to the point whereupon a dying Doug Burger lay in the quasi-comfortable confines of a hospice in those last days.

"I know how sad this all seems," Ricky said nervously while clearing his throat and summoning the courage to continue as he stood behind the elevated lectern overlooking the open-lidded coffin containing the lifeless corpse of their mutual amigo. "But I also know that Doug wouldn't want us to shed tears over his passing. He'd much rather we remember some of the lighter incidents that had occurred, at one time or the other, with any grouping of all of us sitting here today. Most especially with me."

In the short thick pause that passed before a smiling Ricky Dills decided to continue his entertaining eulogy, each and every person, friends one and all, suddenly smiled in remembered amusement over any number of personal situations involving someone who seemed to literally live a life of Comedy.

Then, his own grin growing wider even as his eyes started to twinkle with numerous instances of extreme mirth spanning several decades…

"First, let me tell you about the time…"

And so it began. The relating of tales both lighthearted and, at times, hilarious to the point of seeming exaggeration. Save for the irrefutable fact that similar musings swept through the thoughts of everyone else still sitting in the perfectly aligned pews.

END OF "THE FUNERAL"


	2. THE CONDEMNED

"THE CONDEMNED"

Beginning in the post-high school year of 1973…

Ricky Dills and Doug Burger, having moved to Atlanta, Georgia to get menial employment, just happened to end up with Ricky working as a parking attendant in the sub-floor section of the prestigious Hyatt Regency hotel, while Doug took a job as "Bushelp", which was, in actuality, simply "Busboy" work, though the name change was meant to make such sound at least a little more important than it truly was, in that self-same Hyatt Regency hotel.

It was hard for Doug Burger working in the ground-floor restaurant-bar called Clock of Fives, basically doing the bidding of waitresses as well as customers. He would, at the end of a very long and tiring day, make only enough in shared tips, gathered and subsequently distributed by the Head Bushelp person, a very hip guy to whom Doug constantly tried to clumsily simulate his own "hipness" only to end up a two-legged joke to all who bussed tables, to barely buy a burger.

He'd always only leave the below minimum-wage job with just barely enough cash and coin to purchase a single fast-food hamburger, he couldn't even afford the cheese!, and a very small order of fries. Day in and day out.

Needless to say, an already lanky young man, with a comically long face, humorously large hawk-nose, overtly protruding Adam's Apple on the front of a too-long neck, with hair parted ridiculously low on the left side so as to allow a ridiculously long clump of greasy straight hair to hang down the entire right side of his singularly funny face, wasn't exactly eating as well as he had been before coming to Atlanta.

Such a situation would be even more harshly exacerbated when an always well-fed Ricky Dills would come home stuffed and satisfied.

"Where've you been, Dills? Didn't you get off work at the same time as me?" asked Doug as he sat on the squeaking side of one of two worn-out twin beds in a claustrophobically small room, overrun with seemingly mutant cockroaches, some of which clung to the stained by something ceiling, that had not only a completely missing window, but also a sizeable portion of the brick-and-sheet rock wall as well. And, wouldn't you know it, such a literal hole-in-the-wall was on Doug's side of the nearly-condemned room.

"Just had me a big, juicy steak with all the fixin's," Ricky said with a satisfied sigh as he plopped onto the too-soft mattress of his less-squeaky bed, which sent a veritable army of cockroaches scurrying from beneath.

Glaring at Ricky with that laughably longish face, a gaping mouthed expression half-hidden by the curiously combed, dangling greasy hair, accentuating that comically large hawk-nose, Doug exclaimed, "How the hell did you afford that? All I could get with my tips was a hamburger and fries! Which I had to choke down 'cause I couldn't afford a Coke!"

It never even occurred to Doug Burger's often half-witted forethought to ask for water with his hamburger-and-fries.

"That's because you're bussin' tables," Ricky grinned broadly while slipping hands in behind his head and crossing his feet at the ankles in order to further relax, "while I've been parkin' cars for people with real money."

As if to punctuate such truth, Ricky pulled a fairly large roll of fives, tens, and twenties from one of his pants pockets while Doug desperately dug out a few pennies, dimes, nickels, and a couple of quarters from his own. The expression on his face that of dumbfounded disgruntlement.

"Bastard," grumbled Doug beneath his breath as he, too, stretched out on his too-soft bed…which slowly sank two dozen inches below the rusting metal frame until his too-skinny body formed a ludicrous U-shape.

Amidst a too-tense sigh of absurd exasperation, Doug groaned, "Great."

END OF "THE CONDEMNED"


	3. THE BANK

THE BANK

Amidst chortling laughter after imagining their dear dead friend undergoing something so seemingly exaggerated, for normal people, Ricky, laughing a little more himself, continued, "But then there was the time, after getting our first paychecks, when we took them to a downtown Atlanta bank not far from the Hyatt Regency to cash…"

Still dressed in his maroon-colored Bushelp, i.e. Busboy, uniform coat with black clip-on bow tie on not-so-white shirt, one collar flipped up while the other stayed down, somehow making that too-visible Adam's Apple all the more comical. While Ricky had thought to take off his uniform coat and untied his real tie, Doug followed closely behind Ricky as both walked through immaculately elegant revolving doors at the main entrance of a multi-story bank building in the heart of downtown Atlanta.

After cashing their meager paychecks, which actually caused the tellers to half-stifle amused smirks, Doug made matters even more comical by attempting to "hit" on the incredibly beautiful young lady teller in a fashion similar to a geek attempted to get with the goddess.

"Yeah…I'm really pretty rich…I only do this to see how the poor people live," said Doug Burger with more than a little stupidity to tone and facial expression, never once stopping to think how those who stayed in the downtown Hyatt Regency were far from poor. "Maybe we can…"

"I'm having my appendix removed for the next month," swiftly lied a nearly laughing lovely teller at the highly unlikely concept that such as she would ever go out with a "busboy"…let alone one who looked like some impossibly perfect physical example of a nerd. Or worse.

Not getting that the beauteous teller was blatantly blowing him off, Doug, a too-toothy grin on his longish, hawk-nosed, hair-hanging clownish countenance, turned, almost tripping over his own two feet, then proceeded to trot up behind Ricky even as he had stepped into one of the single-person segments of a graceful revolving door.

Strangely, it suddenly seemed to be stuck.

"What the…?"

Attempting to dislodge whatever was hampering the revolving door, Ricky began to forcefully thrust it forward by the gleaming bar whereupon his hands were pressing ever-harder, until, finally, after hearing someone grunting with each and every forceful forward thrust…

"Burger! What the hell're you doin' in the same slot? You're supposed to be in the one behind me!"

Already embarrassed beyond belief, a comical look of self-loathing on his naturally awkward face, all Doug could tensely whisper was, "Shut up, Dills, just keep going so we can get the hell outta here."

Literally baby-stepping in unison, like some attached-at-the-waist set of sideshow freaks, the two proceeded to gradually inch their way out even as, in their ridiculed wake, every single teller in the bank were nearly rolling with boisterous belly-laughter. Tears in their collective eyes.

Even the few customers who'd come in shortly after this dynamic dunce duo, or so it seemed from their point-of-view, burst out in side-splitting laughter.

Needless to say, neither Ricky nor Doug ever visited that bank again.

In fact, to this day there were rumors that the recordings made by bank lobby surveillance cameras were not only retained, but were still shown at parties attended by tellers and their friends.

The laughter was gradually growing in intensity, even as Ricky Dills, wiping away errant tears brought forth by too much remembered amusement, continued, "But that's not all. One time, when Doug was trying to outrun me to catch the midtown bus…"

END OF PART THREE


	4. THE BUS

"THE BUS"

Doug Burger, snort-laughing like some humorous human-donkey combination, glanced back as Ricky was only then starting to catch up, shouting, "Slow down, dammit! This ain't a race!"

"What's the matter, Dills, can't keep up with Super-Burger?" was the last thing called back by the still snort-laughing self-realizing Comedy on legs, just as he disappeared around the corner.

Suddenly such ridiculous snort-laughter came to an abrupt end as Ricky heard a resounding Thud-Clang! that caused him to screw his freckled face into a mask of puzzlement.

Upon rounding that self-same corner, Ricky saw two things that, promptly put together within his imagination of what had evidently occurred, caused side-slitting laughter to roll forth…

A bus stop sign was shaking as if from a very solid impact, while Doug Burger stood holding one hand over that ludicrously large nose leaving little doubt that he had, not looking where he was running, slammed headlong into the sign with that protruding proboscis always ahead of him.

The last thing Ricky remembered was, due to the intensity of his uncontrollable laughter, pissing his pants on the crowded sidewalks of downtown Atlanta.

A condition which the fifty-something Ricky Dills was damned afraid would happen here and now while still standing behind the lectern, even as a small flood of tears, from consistent amusement over such resurrected stories of his past friendship with the deceased, affected all in the funeral hall.

"Oh, God," said Ricky even as he managed to catch his breath between belly-laughs, "but as if that wasn't enough, by the time our bus came…"

"Ha…ha…ha," mocked Doug, still tenderly touching that honker of a nose so impossibly placed within that too-long face with hanging hair nearly covering one half of it, and, therefore, not paying any attention to where he was about to step.

"Burger!" shouted a teary-eyed, pissed-in-his-pants Ricky Dills as he suddenly reached out and grabbed the back of Doug Burger's too-tight shirt even as…

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmm!

"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

The self-same bus both had ran to catch had narrowly missed running over Doug before coming to its customary shushing halt so passengers could both board or exit…

…as that singular nose, already sore from slamming face-first into the bus stop sign, hard enough to make it wobble wildly, now had a distinct streak of soot on its seemingly illogical length from the side of said bus.

Something which would bring even greater laughter from Ricky the instant he noticed a single, long cleaned streak down the side of the now-stopped bus at the exact height and position as Doug's clownish hawk-nose.

Mocking Ricky's laughter yet again, the expression of his gawky countenance that of someone caught in a comically compromising situation, Doug next started to board the bus but missed a step and wound up landing facedown in the middle of the half-crowded interior as said passengers burst out in raucous laughter.

Not to mention the bus driver, who had to regain control of his own side-splitting laughter before proceeding to drive his downtown route.

As for Ricky? This new eruption of cacophonous chortling only caused him to piss his pants even more.

"Don't that sound like Doug Burger?" Ricky Dills, his damp-with-tears freckled face hurting from so much remembered mirth. "And when we decided to go down into Underground Atlanta to visit some clubs and bars…"

END OF "THE BUS"


	5. THE UNDERGROUND

"THE UNDERGROUND"

Having decided to split up, because, according to Doug Burger's warped way of thinking, So I can pick up some girls!, which was the one thing Doug had not been quite so successful, to say the least…largely because of his near-idiot inability to be able to tell a transvestite from the real thing!…Doug had begun to enter a very dark bar, using mostly black lights for eerie illumination. Too bad he didn't allow adequate time his eyes to adjust.

"Gyuuuhhh!"

Doug had missed the first step down into the darkened interior and literally plopped nose-first onto the all-too-solid floor…

…causing one tattooed goon sitting with several similarly-inclined party-types near the back to spew forth nearly half-a-mug of beer that he'd been drinking the instant he saw Doug Burger's face-planting fall.

From that moment until the point where Doug stumbled to his feet in preparation for exiting the way he entered, an entire bar filled with a wide variety of party-lovers and half-drunk drinkers laughed so loudly that Ricky Dills could hear it several bar-sites away.

Doug, tripping slightly even as he attempted to hurriedly leave with his proverbial tail between his legs, once again rubbing big nose with one hand…

"What the hell did you do this time, Burger?"

…Ricky Dills had already deduced the cause of such boisterous belly-laughing from within the dark bar and was having to hold his own stomach as he doubled over in laughter.

"Keep it up, Dills, keep it up," Doug groused even as, satisfied his too-prominent nose was not broken, he half-stumbled away, casting a staring look of imagined blame down at a perfectly flush section of sidewalk before lumbering away like the living embodiment of Satire that, in point of fact, he was.

More laughter, louder and more freely expressed than earlier, filled the funeral chapel even as the formerly appalled cleric, who was not a friend the corpse in the coffin, found himself laughing so hard his sides hurt and tears rolled down his face.

It was becoming more and more clear that, as Doug Burger would've wanted it, he was still the source of amusement that, like it or not, he'd seemed predestined to be from the day he was born.

"And then…then there was the time," Ricky said while desperately gasping for air amidst his horse-laughing howls, "when he…he bought a car and we were driving from Atlanta to Florida on mostly back roads and bypasses…"

END OF THE UNDERGROUND


	6. THE DRUNK DRIVER

"THE DRUNK DRIVER"

Too tired to drive yet another hundred miles, Doug Burger had crawled into the backseat to stretch out in the four-door Ford sedan, while Ricky Dills slid behind the wheel to continue on even though the darkness of night had long since enshrouded the definitely not illuminated two-lane.

Doug was sound asleep, snoring vociferously like something Ricky Dills had heard on some TV sitcom even as Ricky, trying hard not to give into white line fever, rolled down the driver's side window, to allow the chill of Fall to flood through, and attempted to locate at least a single Rock station so he could crank it loud in order to help keep himself from dozing off.

Finding nothing worth listening to, Ricky had just snapped off the standard in-dash radio just as he noticed something ahead that caused him to slam on the brakes with both feet.

A drunk driving his car back and forth in the midst of the essentially deserted two-lane had sent, by way of Ricky's rapid response, Doug Burger's car skidding scarily close to a rear-end collision that would've definitely demolished both.

As to Doug Burger…hurled forcefully, face-first, onto the floorboard between backseat and front with a sickening sound similar to a dead body being dropped from high above, he gradually pulled himself groggily up to look at a panting-with-panic Ricky Dills and said, stupidly, "We there yet?"

"I looked back at him like," continued Ricky in loving laughter, "are you that stupid or what?"

Laughter became uncontrolled coughing, as was usually the case when such was sustained for such a prolonged length of time, including a cleric who knew next to nothing about the real Doug Burger that these had come to understand so deeply.

"And, finally…finally there was the time, after we moved back to Tennessee," continued Ricky as he quickly caught his breath between such laughter. "We'd driven up into Corbin, Kentucky, basically, I think, to visit someone we'd met but also to, maybe, meet some girls who didn't already know us. Or, better yet, didn't know Doug."

END OF "THE DRUNK DRIVER"


	7. THE RIGHT LINE

"THE RIGHT 'LINE'"

Driving along, night having already descended over the middle of the Kentucky town, in the self-same Ford sedan, Ricky Dills, riding on the passenger's side, noticed two very pretty young ladies, around the same age as Ricky and Doug, walking along alone and told Doug, "Pull over so we can talk to 'em, Burger."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," said Doug Burger as he continued trolling up and down the same exact street, catching their attention, curious and, probably, a little worried as well, as Doug did a dance of words in some comically illogical manner meant to, clearly, come up with just the right way to break the proverbial ice.

"Can you tell us where Corbin, Kentucky is? Hey, where's Corbin, Kentucky? Hi, we're looking for Corbin, Kentucky? Which way is Corbin, Kentucky? Which _way_ is Corbin, Kentucky? Where _is_ Corbin, Kentucky?"

"What the hell're you doing?" Ricky asked at last with his freckled face screwed into a mask of stupefied disbelief.

"I'm tryin' to figure out a way to start a conversation with those girls," said Doug with a directness that spoke senseless volumes about his sometimes inexplicable mental methods.

Especially when it came to something so simple as speaking with two young ladies rather than driving up and down the same street like bloodthirsty stalkers.

"Dumb-ass!" Ricky was quick to state. "We're already in Corbin, Kentucky!"

"Yeah, but those girls don't know that we know that," said Doug Burger by way of what, to him, was a completely logical explanation. Then he continued, "Which way to Corbin, Kentucky? Which _way_ to Corbin, Kentucky? Do you know where…?"

Rolling his eyes, exaggeratedly, and wailing loudly, Ricky said, "God, don't let me kill him!"

END OF "THE RIGHT 'LINE'"


	8. THE BURIAL SITE

"THE BURIAL SITE"

The next day, long after the laughter of love for a too-soon-departed friend in respectful absence of any and all family members, just after the graveside services subsided and, once again, family and, now, friends left for their respective homes…

"You won't ever be really gone, Burger," Ricky Dills said as he lingered looking down into the still-open grave even as the wind suddenly worsened to cause the edges of the green funeral tent to flap furiously. "Not to me or anyone else you made laugh."

For some reason, something told Ricky to turn to look at one corner of the funeral tent where one of the poles, stretching out the canvas surface so tautly, began jerking about and, then, suddenly…

Thwang!

Shoooooft!

Clang!

Thunk!

…the tension of the funeral tent's corner, somehow, snapped and slung the corner metal pole loose to shoot through the air like a javelin hurled by some unseen hand. Then to ricochet off the coffin's closed top, and end up burying its sharper end up to two feet into the solidly packed side of the already dug grave before the final closure of the burial vault and its covering over via previously dug dirt.

Slowly, those well-dressed individuals who were part of the funeral home's personnel joined Ricky Dills to stare down into the grave to see, for themselves, the singular act that was no doubt a hundred thousand to one shot.

Such was when Ricky slowly allowed a smile to spread across his freckled face as, inwardly, he chuckled one last time while imagining Doug Burger, from beyond Death, saying something like, "Dammit, Dills, what're you tryin' to do, kill me?"

Then Ricky thought to himself, as one of the funeral people worked hard to yank out the deeply embedded funeral tent pole, I don't know if there is a God or Heaven up there, Doug, but if there is and if there's a Pearly Gate, you'll probably trip as you walk through. Even God could use a good laugh.

END

**In Memory: Charles Douglas Burger**

**1954-2007**


End file.
